In writing history of black churches, local historian finds powerful stories and inspiration

At St. Louis Missionary Baptist Church in Mobile, one of the city's first black churches, Paulette Horton pauses during her research. Horton is working on a book about the wealth of historically black churches in Mobile, focusing on Missionary Baptist churches in the first volume. (Bill Starling/Press-Register)

WHISTLER, Alabama — For Paulette Horton, who is writing a history of black churches in Mobile, the 19th century seems as vivid as yesterday.

There were only a handful of black churches in Mobile prior to the Civil War, as she tells it, among them, in downtown Mobile, Stone Street Baptist, founded in 1806, and St. Louis Missionary Baptist, dating to 1853. Organized churches for African-Americans in rural areas were even fewer.

In Whistler, for example, parishioners of color worshipped at Old Elam Baptist, a white church with an upstairs gallery for slaves and other non-whites.

When the war ended, says Horton, freed slaves rose at 5 a.m. to take horse and buggy to the churches in the heart of the city.

But soon worshippers founded their own churches close to home.

New Light Missionary Baptist, for example, sits on St. Stephens Road, on the border of Whistler and Eight Mile.

Horton’s research has found that New Light was a spin-off of Stone Street, started just after the Civil War — she points to a cornerstone that says it was organized in 1866.

The original structure, long gone, had a belfry where the bell was rung to call worshippers from far and wide. Baptisms took place in Three Mile Creek.

The black church, says Horton, was the center of community life.

"The role of the church," says Horton, was "to motivate. It renewed your faith. All associations were built around the church."

Knowing the history of the church, says the Rev. Willie Lomax, Jr., pastor of New Light, helps give a new generation pride in the past.

That history, says Lomax, helps bind them to the church of today. Otherwise, he says, "once the old people are dead, the history is gone."

For Horton, 57, a registered nurse by profession, an interest in church history comes about through listening to stories.

As a home health nurse, she spent many years visiting patients in the downtown Mobile area.

After hearing tales from old-timers who resided along the former Davis Avenue — now Martin Luther King Jr. Avenue — she decided to write a book about the famous street.

"The Avenue: the Davis Avenue Story," became her first book, followed by others concerning the origins of school names in Mobile, and the death of Booker T. Washington, who visited Mobile.

The church book, she says, grew out of the Davis Avenue book.

So plentiful is her research material, in fact, that Horton is writing the history in several volumes, the first two volumes focusing on the Missionary Baptist churches of Mobile, including the early pastors.

Her project, titled "Treasured Memories: The Beginning of an Era," covers the years up to 1945. Ninty of the Missionary Baptist churches described there are still thriving today.